This blog about full-time RV life and internet is part three of a series of full-time RVing that we’re interspersing through our regular blogs as well. You can find part one here and part two here. I had intended on putting this one a lot further down the series, but internet is something that we get asked about constantly, so let’s dive into what we use. Let us know if you have any questions!
Oh, internet. How I love you. How life existed before internet, I’m not quite sure. I held out on getting a smartphone long after many of my friends did. It was several years into Jeremiah and my relationship before I took the plunge. I didn’t understand the appeal. That is, until I got it, and navigation changed my life. Since then, I’m officially an internet addict of sorts.
Our most common question is, “what do you do for internet?” When we hit the road, we thought we would have a lot of issues with internet and full-time RV life. We really don’t; we’re connected about 98% of the time. I actually calculated that. One full night of no internet in Northern Virginia in a tiny campground with nobody around us, and a couple of times with less stellar internet in the middle of nowhere in crowded areas – like when we went to King of Hammers outside Joshua Tree where there were about 45k other RVers.
So, what is our current internet set up for traveling?
Internet provider
We using a 3rd-party Verizon reseller grandfather unlimited plan that costs us 175 dollars a month that we run through a jetpack. No, it’s not cheap. However, we paid that much in a regular house when we lived in the country outside Portland, Oregon. Additionally, we also have a 50 dollar amazon MIMO antennae for the jetpack.
The plight of the RVer
We have weBoost trucker antennae on the back ladder; we drilled a hole through the closet and out the back wall and threaded the cord through it. Yes, I cringed while Jeremiah drilled the hole, but it’s a lot smaller than I expected. From there, we run that through the router and we also have a wifi booster at the front of our RV since our RV is so long – most RVs do not need that – but ours really is a house!
Reliability is key
We have found internet to be reliable in almost all areas – there’s been no place where someone else has had internet when we did not. Jeremiah does video calls nearly every day, and we download and stream video constantly. Each of us depends on the internet to work, do research, and for enjoyment. I mean, yes, we love hiking and being outside, but when our A/C breaks while boondocking, we sure love being able to troubleshoot it with reliable internet.
The next time we go down to Mexico though, we are going to re-evaluate what we use for internet, and we’ll be sure to update that when we do. It worked for us while we were there, but we ended up using our phones, and it got expensive.
Our phones
For our phones, we use Google Fi, and that gives us both Sprint and T-Mobile options as backup, which worked great when we went south of the border. We’ve tried many other options and this set-up has proven to be the best for HIGH usage.
